Occupied Germany, 1945: A 25-year-old Jewish lawyer from New York is transferred from the battlefield to the horrors of the newly liberated concentration camps to collect evidence for what will become the Nuremberg trials of Nazi murderers. Two years later, Ben Ferencz prosecuted 22 members of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads that killed more than a million Jews. All were convicted.

New York, 2018: After a lifetime negotiating reparations and restitution for the Nazis’ victims, helping form the International Criminal Court and demanding accountability for all mass murderers, Ben Ferencz, now 98 years old and the last living Nuremberg Trials prosecutor, will join us to reflect on his extraordinary life after our screening of a new documentary film, Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz, about his work. He will be accompanied by the film’s producer/director, Barry Avrich.

More About the Film:

Barry Avrich’s gripping documentary, Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz, tells the fascinating story of one of the Holocaust’s most heroic figures. Ben Ferencz, age 98, is the last surviving Nuremberg trial prosecutor and he is on a lifelong crusade in the fight for law not war.

After the Holocaust camps were liberated, Ferencz became a lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. He prosecuted 22 Einsatzgruppen Nazis responsible for murdering over a million Jews. Called the biggest murder trial in history, Ferencz was only 27, and it was his first case. He would go on to advocate for restitution for Jewish victims of the Holocaust and later the establishment of the International Criminal Court. His fight for justice for victims of atrocity crimes continues today.

Prosecuting Evil explores Ferencz’s anthem to the world underscored by a simple message: “We must live in a world where the rule of law replaces the rule of force.”